Weekend Transit Ridership

January 23, 1986

The Chicago Transit Authority, which has just raised the price of its Sunday Supertransfer to $1.75, is thinking of doing away with that unlimited- ride ticket altogether. The CTA, which has very little marketing expertise, ought to think twice about that proposal.

The agency may be pricing itself out of the weekend market, ultimately forcing itself to shut down on Sundays altogether.

The Supertransfer was one of the more innovative experiments in fare marketing conducted by the CTA in recent years. There are those who would argue it was the only innovation attempted.

When the program was started in 1974, Sunday ridership on the rapid transit system had dropped to less than 100,000. That represents about 19 percent of average weekday ridership. As recently as 1947, Sunday ridership was 41 percent of weekday. (Saturday ridership since 1947 has dropped from 82 percent of weekday averages to slightly more than 40 percent.)

The Supertransfer resulted in an almost immediate increase in ridership and in just three years it was almost back to 1953 levels. Today, Sunday ridership still represents more than 26 percent of average weekday patronage. Of the approximately 142,000 riders on the rapid transit system on Sundays, almost 70,000 use transfers.

Since very few persons who use the CTA on Sundays are compelled to do so to get to and from work, elimination of the Supertransfer may well result in a substantial decline in ridership and raise the question of whether the transit system ought to stay open on Sunday.

This case, as well as others, points to the need for some strong marketing input at the top levels of the CTA. Rather than simply studying whether Supertransfers ought to be eliminated, the CTA should take a broader look at its Sunday service to determine what can be done to sell it to the public and increase ridership.